Sunday, August 12, 2007

Walk Don't Run

My next and last triathlon of the season is the Glenwood Springs Triathlon in Sept. It's basically a sprint distance except for the run which is 5 miles and which has always been my bane every year I've done this race. It's mostly on road or smooth non-technical trails and it's not too terribly hilly (though nothing in Colorado is strictly flat) but I'm always sucking wind the last mile or so. So I've decided to try to focus on improving my run in the next few weeks before the race. I'll almost certainly be sucking wind anyway because I'm not in the best of shape at the moment but this summer's all about getting back into racing/training so I'm not going to stress too much about it.

Anyway, today should have been a long run day but this past week was pretty rough between recovering from last week's race and other physical issues. So I decided I'd much rather go for a nice relaxing hike in the high country. I took Strummer and we headed up to Arapaho Pass in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. It's only an hour's drive but the scenery is beautiful. This particular hike has spectacular wildflower displays and this year's are even more amazing than usual. I only took the one dog because I wanted this to be relaxing, remember. Lola's prey drive is so high that she loses her mind in the woods and Cody is o.k. but he likes to stop and sniff a lot which can get annoying on a long hike so Strummy it was. He did great, soliciting attention from anyone who would give it to him. The hike is only 6 miles but it starts at around 10,000 feet and goes up to nearly 12,000 so a good portion of it is above treeline which slowed us both down a bit. In all we were hiking around 3 hours but that included all our breaks for water, pictures, questions about Strummer from the other hikers, etc. It was a gorgeous day and a wonderful hike that hit the spot. I had no regrets at all about skipping my run.

I did take a tumble near the end of the hike when I got distracted by some other hikers and failed to notice a big rock in my way. I've got some good cuts and bruises on my knee but what else is new. Twisted my back pretty good too but so far I feel o.k.

I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow as my internet connection at home sucks and it's a pain to post photos.

We have few places where we can hike the dogs off leash, without being in violation of something. But we do it anyway and fortunately all three are really good about sticking around and not bothering other people and dogs on the trail. Sometimes we get accosted by the rangers and asked to put them back on leash.

But it's a small price to pay to give them the chance to swim in some really nice clean water. And easier than having to bathe them. :-D

Sure Duane, I'd love to. Always fun to meet a fellow trigeek. Will you be at the pre-race course meeting/raffle on Sat.? It's such a fun race, I'm really looking forward to it even though I'm not in the shape I'd like to be in. And I almost always win cool stuff in the raffle.

As for the dogs, we have lots of places in Boulder where they can go offleash but right now they're all crawling with rattlesnakes so we end up breakin' the law at the city parks at unsociable hours of the morning so they can run. This particular hike was in designated 'Wilderness Area' and I don't like letting the dogs off leash there because for one thing I don't want to lose trail access. It's a huge issue in this area, political careers are made and broken over the dog/trail issue in Boulder. Though this trail isn't under Boulder jurisdiction, I still like to be a good doggie ambassador on it because it's busy and not everyone likes dogs. I'd hate to lose access to the wilderness areas. Also, the terrain is fairly extreme on either side of the trail, ie super steep & rocky drop offs so I didn't want the dogs taking off after a pika or something and breaking a leg or careening down the mountain. Also running into a ranger is rare but they're pretty hardcore about issuing expensive tickets. Strummy couldn't go much faster than me on the uphill anyway because of the steepness and elevation. Lola would have pulled me up like a sack of potatoes but unfortunately would have pulled me back down the same way.